Closeup of Portland City Hall, built in 1909-1912. Like many of the city’s downtown buildings, it’s made of granite, in part as a result of the Great Fire of 1866, which destroyed much of downtown Portland. Granite doesn’t burn!
— Photo by Billy Hathorn
“I felt fighting discrimination was the most important thing I could do as an elected official. I said then and I believe now that any doctrine of superiority is scientifically false, moral condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous.’’
— Gerald E. Talbot (born 1931) a civil rights leader, author and politician from Portland, Maine. Talbot was the first Black legislator in the state, the founding president of the Portland chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and was president of the Maine State Board of Education under Gov. Joseph Brennan. In 2020, the Riverton elementary school in Portland was renamed the Gerald E. Talbot Community School.
